


Need You Now

by arrow_through_my_writers_block



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt, F/M, Heavy Angst, Hurt, My OTP is so sad in this, Posting it again because somehow it was deleted, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-25
Updated: 2017-06-25
Packaged: 2018-11-19 01:21:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11302806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arrow_through_my_writers_block/pseuds/arrow_through_my_writers_block
Summary: A two part Season 3 ficlet about Oliver and Felicity after Oliver's has chosen to become Al Sah-him. Inspired by the song Need You Now by Lady AntebellumNOTE: I had originally posted this after the SOTY voting in 2015, but somehow it disappeared so I am posting it again!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hotcookinmama](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotcookinmama/gifts).



Felicity walked into the foundry. The lair. The Arrowcave. As her feet left the final step and connected with the floor, her heart sank even further. It was trashed. Completely ransacked. The salmon ladder stood in the shadows like a lurking demon and the fern was beginning to shrivel. The whole place was in disarray and it broke her heart.

She went to a chair and collapsed. It was his chair. The one he rarely sat in, but it was reserved only for him. It wasn’t the most comfortable seat, but it fit him perfectly; Oliver wasn’t a man to allow himself comfort or ease. The rigidness of it broke her composure and the tears began to flow, cascading down her cheeks. It was all too much. 

She kept reminding herself that it had to be fake. Oliver couldn’t be gone. Oliver couldn’t be evil. But all of his actions that night had answered all of her burning questions and confirmed her worst fears. This knowledge sent the tears into overdrive. 

She buried her hands into her coat pockets to keep them from shaking, closing in on her cell. She stopped for a moment, taking the cell out and staring at it. Her mind raced with all the words she wished she could say and everything she longed to change. She went to her contact list and found his name, his picture staring back at her with that broody half-grin. She began calling him.

It rang and rang and rang, destroying her more with each call tone. Then his voicemail played, his voice making her heart race. “Hey. It’s Oliver. I can’t answer right now. Leave a message.”

And then came the beep. She almost ended the call but her sobs broke through, cutting off her actions. Then she began to speak. “Please tell me all of this is an act and that you’re not really the face of evil I saw tonight. Please tell me you’re still Oliver underneath that facade. Please tell me you’re going to come back. Please tell me I haven’t lost you. I need you…” 

And then the recording ended, cutting her short. She dropped the phone, not caring if the screen shattered or something inside loosened. All that mattered was her need for him. Her need for everything to be an act. She longed to have him there with her, making her feel better about the whole situation. But that wasn’t possible. 

And deep down, she knew her hopes were misplaced. Oliver was gone. And even with that knowledge, she still needed him. Desperately. 


	2. Chapter 2

 

As usual, Oliver was pacing. Pacing the room he had shared with Felicity for one wonderful night. The room he wished still smelled of her. The room that tortured him yet calmed him all at once. Everything he had said and done that night came back to him, crushing what little remained of him with guilt. It would take a miracle for Diggle to trust him again, and he was afraid of what it might take for Felicity to trust him again. So he paced to walk away the worry and loneliness. 

But seeing her disappointed face had destroyed him more than he expected it to. He hadn’t realized how important her approval and admiration was to him. But it wasn’t surprising. She was the first to truly call him a hero, and that title had floored him the first time it was applied to him. And now that it didn’t fit anymore, he wasn’t sure who or what he was. 

He stopped his continuous trek across the bedroom floor and went to the bedside table. He had hidden the cell phone beneath it after saying goodbye to her, knowing that he might need it. He sat on the end of the bed and escaped the lockscreen, going straight to his photos. 

She had rolled her eyes in the moment, but he had snapped multiple photos of her, knowing there would be times -times like these- when he might desperately need to see her smiling face. Her seductive face. Her sleepy face. Her loving face. The face of a woman in love with her hero. Each one sent aching waves through his chest, settling in his heart. Years before, he might have considered such feelings a weakness, but now it was his strength. 

He stopped at his favorite photo. The one of her with the red sheets wrapped around her chest and her looking up at him through her lashes, the candlelight deepening the shadows and contrast and glowing in her golden hair. It was magic to him; it was an intoxicating image that always sent him back to that night. 

He glanced up at the door, wishing she would come through, sweeping in and taking him by surprise with her declarations. He was certain that the declaration would be one of hate if she walked in now, but just the thought of being in the same room alone with her was enough to make his heart race. 

Suddenly the phone lit up brighter, bringing his eyes down to the screen. Another picture of her stared back at him: her behind her computer, glaring at him playfully and impatiently. She was calling him. 

His heart ceased its racing and silenced. His thumb hovered over the green button, begging him to answer, but he kept his hand tense. He couldn’t answer. He couldn’t let her know the truth, and it destroyed him all over again. 

After a few seconds the screen went back to the magical photo, leaving him with a missed call notification. He wondered why she would be calling him. He wondered what she wanted to say to him. Was it loving or hateful? Lonely or content? Heartbroken or angry? Nothing she could have said would surpass the horrific things he said to himself on a daily basis. 

Then a new notification flitted across the screen. A new voicemail. 

He closed his eyes, trying to ignore it. He suddenly regretted keeping the phone. He dropped it onto the crimson sheets and went to a table in the corner. He filled a goblet with a strong wine and downed it in one long gulp. Liquid courage that he shouldn’t have needed but couldn’t do without. He refilled and downed two more cups and went back to the phone, going to the voicemail. He attempted to steel himself against the power of her trembling voice, but nothing could keep him together as she began to speak.

“Please tell me all of this is an act and that you’re not really the face of evil I saw tonight.” Her first words hit him like an unexpected arrow to the chest. His eyes began to sting and the tears fought to fall. “Please tell me you’re still Oliver underneath that facade. Please tell me you’re going to come back. Please tell me I haven’t lost you. I need you…” 

By the end of her message, he was broken, doubled over with his face in his hands and tears slipping between his fingers. He hadn’t expected her to still believe in him, even just a little bit. And he was certain that phone call signified the end of that belief. He hadn’t answered her. He hadn’t eased her worry or heartache. He hadn’t revealed the truth to her. 

That he was still Oliver Queen. 

That he was still her hero. 

That he was still hers. 

That he still needed her. Desperately. 


End file.
